Ad Exchanges

Ad Exchanges work with tons of advertisers and publishers, and figuring out which ad exchange is right for you may be a challenge. Using media intelligence tools such as AdClarity can help you see exactly which publishers and advertisers the ad exchange of your choice is working with, helping you decide if they are relevant or not to your business. Additionally, you can discover many other ad exchanges (as we only listed the top 7) that may work much better for your industry.

An ad exchange is a type of online marketplace for unsold display ad space. This unsold ad space usually belongs to individual site owners or ad networks. The ad exchange allows publishing and advertising networks to buy and sell their ad inventory via a marketplace. Nowadays most of these ad exchanges offer improved transparency and targeting by auctioning impressions in real-time between multiple bidders- allowing for publishers to get the best price on their space. For the advertiser the ad exchange allows to target the most accurate audience. Additionally, it reduces the cost of a middleman by making this a direct buy. So what are the top ad exchanges YOU should be using?

There the "good" boys and the "bad" boys. Being "good" means: an ad exchange tries to be Google streamlined. These boys will later go to heaven. Being "bad" means: the ad exchange allows almost anything, and will therefore go anywhere. Although recently Google made one reluctant step towards the "bad" side: It now allows gambling offers - something unthinkable. It took Google 30 years to add  the category Gambling to the approved list of categories. And guess what? All other streamlined Google followers opened their doors for Gambling offers too.

DoubleClick Ad Exchange (Google)

Owned by Google, this is by far the largest ad exchange out there. It is some kind of premium version of Google AdSense. It has access to the world’s biggest pool of advertisers that pay the highest eCPM. Buyers benefit from having access to thousands of publishers of all sizes, with massive reach, leveraging their own data and optimization capabilities to bit in real time, powerful targeting tools which put the right ad in front of the right audience at the right time and a single bill for payment.

Microsoft Media Network

Runner-up: Microsoft's Media Network is Google streamlined. This ad exchange is a premium display network as well. It is built on quality inventory from trusted sites across the web including Microsoft own and operated sites such as MSN. By leveraging exclusively owned and partnered data sources such as Microsoft accounts, MSN, Bing, etc their high-quality reach empowers you to better determine when, where, and how you connect with your audience.

Marketplace by Adtech (AOL) 

= Google streamlined. Adtech is part of the AOL network. This is another ad exchange that enables the buying and selling of digital ads. Adtech enables the world’s top marketers and media brands to reach consumers across desktop, mobile, and connected TV boxes with impact through premium experiences, programmatic buying and performance driven campaigns.

OpenX 

Another Google streamlined ad exchange. The OpenX Ad Exchange is one of the larger ad exchanges. It includes some 1000+ publishers running more than 100 billion impressions per month. Hundreds of the industry’s top DSPs, networks and trading desks buy ad space, and in fact 96% of leading clean advertisers buy ads through this ad exchange.

AppNexus 

= Google streamlined. In September 2015 - right before DMEXCO in Cologne - AppNexus kicked out 65% of their sell side, which was considered a huge cleaning from fraud traffic. Still with this exchange platform one gets access to hundreds of demand  and supply partners. The AppNexus user interface gives you many different options for optimization. It allows you to decide how transparent you are based on the individual buyer. You can control the visibility of your sites, the information shared about your inventory,  etc etc. If there wouldn't be so many content restrictions, AppNexus would be the No. 1 ad exchange.

Atomx

Atomx is not at all Google streamlined. Ok, Atomx has a pretty clean Google conform section that allows advertisers to reach out to google-registered publishers. But this ad exchange also allows so-called greyzone advertisers and publishers to thrive. And it's even getting better: Atomx fights fraudulent publisher activities, malware ads and auto-redirects. That's like as if you bring in the Golden State Warriors starting 5 and you use the San Antonio Spurs starters as bench players = veeeeery powerful mix!

ADK2

Also not Google streamlined. ADK2 was there when Rightmedia imploded. Many of those questionable publishers and advertisers found a new haven in this ad exchange. But the ADK2 environment is rough. As a publisher you will face malware, adult ads and auto-redirects. As an advertiser you will face a lot of bot traffic - a lot!